"Mrs Fallaci is insulting the Muslim community as a whole with her shameful words," the head of Geneva 's top Islamic center said.
Geneva: Geneva's top Islamic center said June 20 it had filed a suit under Swiss anti-racism laws against Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, including a call for her book "Rage and Pride" to be banned.

"Mrs Fallaci is insulting the Muslim community as a whole with her shameful words," the head of the Islamic Center, Hani Ramadan, said in a statement carried by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Ramadan said the Center wanted Geneva's prosecutor to order the book withdrawn and banned from shops, and called for action against those involved in its distribution.

He said the "racist terms" in the book violated Swiss law.The journalist claims in the book that there is an unbridgeable gap between the Muslim and Christian worlds, and makes insulting comments about Muslim society.

She also warns of a "Pearl Harbor" against the West.

An anti-racist group had also filed a suit in France to have Fallaci’s insulting book banned. A French judge said Tuesday, June 18, he would rule Friday, June 21, on the request.

Fallaci's "Anger and Pride" is an "incendiary tract of Islamophobia," said MRAP in its plea. The Movement Against Racism And For Friendship Between Peoples (MRAP) said in its plea that Fallaci's "Anger and Pride," published in France last month, was an "incendiary tract of Islamophobia."

"Freedom of expression is and will remain a fundamental right... but when this great writer resorts to outrageous stigmatization of Islam, the limits of what is tolerable are breached," MRAP said, AFP reported.

A representative from the state prosecutor's office, Pierre Dillange, said an emergency ban on the book made no sense, even though he said it contained "an unacceptable mixture of ideas".

Fallaci, 72, is one of Italy's best-known journalists and now lives in New York, where she witnessed the September 11 attacks.

Fallaci's book, strongly in favor of the United States, was published two weeks after the September 11 attacks and has topped the bestseller lists in Italy since. Her book, in which she accuses Europe of being blind to the growing problems of Islamic immigration and so-called terrorism, has already aroused hot debate in Italy.

An article Fallaci wrote denouncing anti-Semitism stirred controversy in June after she pointed the finger at the Roman Catholic church and the political left over the current Mideast crisis. (IOL)q